Match Play Championship Enters Second Day


In the new round-robin format for the WGC-Cadillac Match Play Championship, single-elimination matches have been done away with and all 64 players in the field are guaranteed to play a minimum of three rounds. The $9.25 million tournament began Wednesday at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco.

The only individual match-play event on the Tour's annual schedule now involves 16 four-player groups, with the top-16 seeds (based on the World Golf Ranking) in each group. The other three players in each group were randomly selected from one of three pools.

Following the first three rounds, the 16 players with the best records in their groups will advance to the Round of 16 for single-elimination match play (in the event of a two-way tie in a group, head-to-head match results will be used as the tiebreaker; a three-way tie will require a sudden-death stroke play hole by hole playoff).

The Round of 16 will be played Saturday morning, followed by the quarterfinals Saturday afternoon. The semifinals will be Sunday morning, followed by the Championship Match and Consolation Match Sunday afternoon.

At the end of Day 1, top seeds Rory McIlroy and Justin Spieth won their matches handily, while Bubba Watson, Jim Furyk, Rickie Fowler, Patrick Reed, Hideki Matsuyama and Sergio Garcia also earned a point.

Top seeds in the 16 groups who lost included Henrik Stenson, defending Match Play champion Jason Day, Jimmy Walker, J.B. Holmes, Matt Kuchar, and Justin Rose, who's coming off a victory in last week's Zurich Championship.

Spieth, the reigning Masters' champion, was efficient in beating Finland's Mikko Ilonen, 4 and 2. The 21-year-old from Dallas is comfortable with the format, having won two U.S. Junior Amateur titles and both of his singles matches in the 2011 Walker Cup.

"I don't really find much of a change, to be honest," Spieth said about match play vs. stroke play. "I'm certainly more comfortable in certain situations. When the pressure is on, I can look back at the Masters and other high packed, pressure situations where I've seen putts go in and it's a little easier on the greens. All in all, nothing feels very different for me. It's just another week."

McIlroy made quick work of Jason Dufner, beating the Auburn grad 5 and 4. "I did what I needed to do out there," said the 25-year-old Northern Irishman. "Jason didn't have his best stuff, obviously. So just tried to put him under pressure from the start, tried to hit fairways, hit greens, and try and make him force a little bit. Match play, you just need to beat the person that's in front of you and did that today."

Rose, who won for his sixth straight year on the PGA Tour last week in New Orleans, lost 3 and 2 to Marc Leishman. The Englishman tipped his cap to the Aussie. "Marc is a great player, he's played well in many major championships and big tournaments and he plays well on good golf courses. And this is a good golf course. He's a quality player," Rose said.

"I had my chances out there, absolutely. I was 2 down and then birdied No. 9 after playing some nice golf in the middle of the front nine. And went bogey, bogey after that. I played well to get momentum on the turn and then gave it straight back. Those are the mistakes that you can't afford to make. He gave me nothing. He upped and downed the ball well when he hit a bad shot. He played a solid game."

Day, who beat France's Victor Dubuisson last year when the tournament was held in Arizona, fell 4 and 3 to Charley Hoffman. The 27-year-old Day bogeyed the par-4 fourth hole to go down by one but got the match back to even after a Hoffman bogey on the 10th hole. But Hoffman reeled off two straight birdies at Nos. 12 and 13 and Day couldn't recover.

In order to advance to the Round of 16, Day needs to see improved play out of himself. "Obviously I need to go out there and win the next two," the Aussie said. "And whatever happens, happens. If I sneak through, I sneak through. If not, then it's my own fault for losing. It's a different format and I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes the next couple of days."

Ben Martin had the shot of the day when he aced the 243-yard, par-3 17th hole to grab a 1-up lead on Kuchar and then won on the par-5 18th when both parred. "I'd say under the circumstances that's probably the best shot I've ever hit," the 27-year-old South Carolinian said later.

"It was a hybrid into the wind, 235. I didn't even see it go in. I know it was on a good line, but I looked down and then it was almost too far to see it go in. But I tried to just stay even-keel because I knew I was going to be 1‑up with one to play, and I didn't want to get too excited, too ahead of myself. I'd like to win the last hole. And we both missed our putts there, which was a little disappointing. But to be in my first match play event and to go up against one of the best players in the world and we had a great match all day, it was a lot of fun."

For all the scores, visit http://www.worldgolfchampionships.com/cadillac-match-play/livescoring.html.